Speaker Mike Johnson said he thinks the Trump administration’s war on Iran will “come to a close soon” following the president’s speech this week at the House Republican Conference’s policy retreat in Doral, Florida.
“The mission is virtually accomplished now as it was defined,” Johnson told NOTUS’ Reese Gorman on the latest episode of the On NOTUS podcast. “And I think that’ll happen. That’s his intention, and he’s saying the same thing to us privately as he says publicly.”
In his speech addressing the House Republicans at the retreat, President Donald Trump said gas prices might continue to rise for a short period due to the conflict.
“I think the key words there are ‘a little bit,’” Johnson said. “There will be a little period of interruption there because of what’s going on overseas. But we think it will be very brief and then gas prices will continue to come down as they had been.”
Johnson said that ahead of midterms, Republicans need to work on more unified messaging on the sweeping reconciliation bill passed in July. He admitted that on the party’s signature legislative accomplishment, “We can better message the achievements” in the package that the president signed into law in July.
“We did it all at once, and so it’s both a blessing and a curse. The curse part of it is that we have 219 Republicans in the conference and 219 people went out and messaged that many different provisions of the bill that they thought was important,” Johnson said. “So the messaging has been sort of diffused in that way.”
Johnson added that a key part of the midterm strategy will be reminding voters of the reconciliation bill’s impacts.
“They need to know that we did that and we promised them we would, and we did,” Johnson said. “They will feel the effects before the election.”
He vowed that Republicans “will defy history” and retain their majority in November.
NOTUS sat down with the speaker during the House Republicans’ annual issues conference. They were charting their midterm strategy, but with less than half of the conference members attending, it may be challenging to have members on the same page.
House Republicans are also debating whether to pursue a second reconciliation passage before the midterms, which Johnson is pushing for. Multiple members told NOTUS Tuesday they’re not sure it’s possible.
On NOTUS is a weekly podcast in which host Reese Gorman talks to lawmakers about how they got to Washington and what motivates them. You can download or listen here.
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Iran: “Mission is Virtually Accomplished”
In a special edition of On NOTUS from the House Republican retreat at President Trump’s golf resort in Doral, Reese Gorman talks to House Speaker Mike Johnson about why the mission is “virtually accomplished” in Iran, how he plans to improve GOP messaging on their accomplishments ahead of the midterms and his late-night phone calls with President Trump.
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